Still remains upbeat despite Portsmouth loss

Mike Simmonds

Hatters boss John Still remained in upbeat mood despite a 2-0 defeat at Portsmouth yesterday.

The result was Luton’s third successive loss and a fifth defeat in six matches as they dropped further behind the top three, but Still felt the display had been back to what he expected from his side.

“The last half last week and the game this week, performance was back to what we’d expect so we’ve got to push on.”

John Still

He said: “We conceded a poor goal but after that I thought we were the best team. It’s the best we’ve played which is really pleasing and we seem to have found a bit of form.

“We had two or three off the line, created opportunities, our pressure was good, but we got beat, so I have to put that into perspective.

“We’ve lost some games lately when we’ve been disappointing and I was disappointed to lose, but thought our performance was like a Luton performance.

“We’ve got to produce that every week between now and the end of the season.

“We’ve had a group of games for one reason or another have not gone for us, but the last half last week and the game this week, performance was back to what we’d expect so we’ve got to push on.”

On Matt Tubbs’ fifth minute opener, with the striker getting across Luke Wilkinson to flick in Jed Wallace’s cross Still continued: “It’s really, really difficult, the response from it was fantastic, but you can’t concede goals early in a game of that nature as you end up chasing.

“If somebody rifles one in from 30 yards, there’s nothing you can do about it, but I had said to the back people about someone getting across us, Tubbs getting across us.

“Wilko’s body was closed, he’s put his hands up, he had a fantastic second half of the game and the team had a great 75 minutes of the game.

“I pride myself and my teams on not conceding goals and at the moment, I think we’re conceding one or two a bit easy.

“So we’re disappointed, but disappointment makes the weak, weak and the strong stronger.”

Still’s selection was hampered with injuries to Jonathan Smith and Scott Griffiths, while skipper Steve McNulty had to come off at half time too.

He added: “Smith had a problem with his knee, it’s not terrible as we took him off the other day, but he’s not quite right.

“Scott’s not quite right and is due to see the specialist, I don’t know when exactly it will happen (hernia operation) and he may actually be available again before it happens, but wasn’t quite available.

“Macca had two knocks, two cuts and bit of blurred vision, so it was the right thing to come off.

“We’re a little bit down on big characters with Macca off and (Nathan) Doyle off and Smith off and (Mark) Tyler off. That’s no disrespect to the people who replace them but they’re big characters and you miss big characters.”